Lord of The Dance
Leaps Around Irish Tradition
February 15, 1998By Joan Hennessy Times-Union staff writer
Gillian Norris' voice has a childlike quality, a gentle lilt that bespeaks her Irish heritage and makes her confession somewhat jolting:
''I love the part I got: Morrighan. She's so wild. She's a temptress,'' said Norris, 19, a lead dancer for Lord of the Dance, which will be in Jacksonville Wednesday at the Coliseum.
''You can really express yourself on stage with her.''
Norris, according to press accounts, is decked in red as Morrighan the sexpot. Like the rest of the cast, she is described as a capable dancer.
This is the appeal of Lord of the Dance: impressive footwork mixed with an immediately understandable good-vs.-evil theme. The performance has sold out in Jacksonville and is selling out throughout the country and abroad, according to press accounts.
In its wake, Lord of the Dance leaves an enchanted audience that otherwise might never have seen any form of Irish dance. What audiences are seeing, however, isn't traditional Irish dance.
As explained by the Los Angeles Times, the show's choreographer, Michael Flatley, transformed Irish stepdancing into a sexy sensation.
''What matters is that Irish stepdancing was a prim, moldy antique of interest only to a devoted coterie before Flatley came along with his show-biz savvy . . .'' the Times reported in March. Lord of the Dance is a dazzling combination of Irish dance, gypsy, disco, flamenco and ballet, according to the show's promoters. Traditional Irish dance is an exacting discipline.
''You don't use your arms. You don't smile,'' Norris said in a phone interview from a hotel in Nashville, Tenn., where the company appeared last week.
''When you're on stage, you have to show you're concentrating. If you smile, you give the impression you don't care. ''
Lord of the Dance is different.
''You do what you want, what you feel, using your hands and expressing yourself on stage,'' she said.
In fact, Flatley, who is on tour with the same show in Europe, was with the more-traditional Riverdance until 1996.
In an Associated Press story last year, he explained, ''I didn't want someone to tell me that I couldn't use my arms, or do a triple spin, or a moonwalk.''
Lord of the Dance has a story line told through the dancing. There is a basic theme: good vs. evil.
''It starts off where there's a spirit and she wakes up all the dancers. Then you'll have the Lord of the Dance enter,'' Norris said.
''Throughout the story, you have the bad guy, and he's trying to dance and trying to be better than the good guy. And you have the good girl and the bad girl, which I play. The bad girl is trying to take the Lord of the Dance away from the good girl. Like with everything, the good wins over the bad.''
Norris, who is from Waterford, Ireland, started her training late, at age 10. Most Irish dancers start by age 4.
''All Irish parents want their children to try Irish dancing,'' she said. ''I started when I was 10. I didn't want to do it at all. I went for a few months, and I began to like it. I got into competitions. The more I won, the more I liked it.''
Norris has been with the company for two years and is enjoying the tour. There are ovations in every city, she said. Critics are singing the praises of the high-tech staging combined with the talents of Irish dance virtuosos in the cast.
Perhaps there is a basic appeal to Lord of the Dance, however, that starts before the curtain opens: Many Americans can trace their family history to the Emerald Isle. Norris summed it up this way:
''Americans love Ireland.''
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